‘The West refuses to develop Africa’s potential’

Africa could feed itself and provide food for the rest of the world if we develop it, but the West prefers to let people die from famine and war rather than develop these countries, Lawrence Freeman from Executive Intelligence Review Magazine told RT.

RT: Hundreds of millions of dollars from the
Pentagon are flowing into Africa now. Why is the continent
attracting US attention?

Lawrence Freeman: The US has no good policy
right now for Africa, which would mean developing the potential
of the continent. And now under President Barack Obama our focus
is becoming more and more on security and counter-terrorism,
which now involves hundreds of millions and billions of dollars.
And it’s really failing throughout the entire area of Sahara,
West Africa, Central Africa… The security measures themselves
have proven to be completely ineffective and it presented us with
horrible conditions of worth, of life and destruction of
countries.

RT:What interests does the US have in
Africa? It is about democratization?

LF: I don’t think the US is trying to bring in
democracy. The potential of Africa is enormous. In South Sudan,
which is now almost in a civil war, this is the most fertile land
untapped in the continent which could feed almost 1 billion
people. The West has refused to develop its potential. China is
not buying up oil fields and resources. China has an arrangement
with their coming in with infrastructure, which the United States
and Europe have refused over the last 30 years. China is building
infrastructure and in return they are getting paid back in
various resources such as oil. Africa could feed itself and could
provide food for the rest of the world if we develop it. But the
Western policy has actually been a genocidal policy that is to
allow people to die from famine, from war and from disease rather
than [to] develop these countries.

RT:There are reports that Africa's Republic
of Djibouti, north of Somalia, is the place where the Pentagon is
now expanding its activities the most. What might be the reason
for that?

LF: Yes, the US many years ago took over an old
French base there and they are now expanding it from about 2,500
up to maybe 4,000. This is unfortunately Obama’s policy to
Africa. It has probably been the greatest militarization of
Africa that we've seen under any president. He makes these lying
comments about doubling access to electricity in Africa. And then
the main deployment has been this military capability and there
are many other bases being built up in Africa, including possibly
new bases in South Sudan, and there are many bases now where we
are warehousing drones.

In summer 2013, the Obama Administration unveiled the Power
Africa program, a commitment of $7 billion to expand energy
access across the continent. By January 2014, the Power Africa
program had attracted $2.7billion in investments. In August
2014 President Obama is planning to hold a US-Africa summit,
seeking to widen US trade, development and security ties with
an increasingly dynamic continent.

So all this money that has been spent could much better be spent
building roads, building energy power plants, building water
development projects. And actually I believe the population of
Africa and we refuse to do it, we have a military only policy
right now. China has a different policy and for their own
reasons, China is developing Africa, benefiting from it; they are
building something. And the US and the West have refused to build
any substantial infrastructure probably since the 1970s.

RT:We can see that many African states are
rather unstable now. Is it possible to say that US missions are
helping to improve the situation here?

LF: That’s the point. How is this helping? We
spent over a billion dollars in counter-terrorism security in
Sahel, West Africa and North Africa. And we've seen the Mali
[leadership] toppled a year ago, we've seen the rise of Boko
Haram, we committed the absolute criminal stupidity of
overthrowing President Gaddafi, which Obama, Susan Rice and
Samanta Power went for. So how is this security helping? Look at
the Central African Republic. It’s been destroyed, it almost
doesn't exist anymore. Look at Nigeria, look at South Sudan, look
at Mali… They are still fighting terrorism in Northern Mali with
French troops.

RT:Reuters reports the US Defense
Department could ask Congress for 4.5 billion dollars in extra
funds for missile defense, part of which will go towards a new
radar based in Alaska. What's your take on that?

LF: There is a grouping in military that is not
in favor of militarization, in fact this patriotic group in the
military has kept us out of war in Syria for the last year. But
the Obama Administration and the people advising him really don’t
care at all about the welfare of the people of Africa, and they
are going to let them die, and they [people] are actually dying
in Africa.

All this propaganda that the US is trying to help Africa and we
are going to double access to electricity… this is a lie that is
repeated throughout Washington. We are not doing anything near
that is necessary to develop these countries. And right now look
at South Sudan. This is the country that we, the US and Britain,
helped to create, and we have completely deserted the country and
it’s destroying itself because we didn't develop it when it
became independent. We weren't concerned about [its] development,
we threw it to the wind and now we are suffering the consequences
of it.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.